“I don’t like to see her pick up the baby,” the nurse said to Mrs. Tracy. “She doesn’t look healthy.”
“I dare say she’s not,” replied Mrs. Tracy, with a sigh; “and who knows what she’s been doing, or where she comes from? But I suppose it can’t be helped. She had a legal right to see the child, of course. My son is very strict about her rights, and so on—very generous.”
Her son himself was not always so sure of his generosity. He had moments when he thought himself little short of contemptible. Only moments, though; he was no rebel, and if his world was inclined to condone his offenses, or even to deny them, who was he to contradict it?
He was young himself—only twenty-two; a good-looking, silly, sweet-tempered boy. His life was one folly after another, always repaired by some one else. He did not imagine that he could do no wrong, but he felt pretty sure that any wrong that he might do could easily be undone by some one else.
He had found Maisie behind the counter of a candy shop, where he went to buy lavish presents for other girls. Her luminous and innocent eyes, her soft little English voice, had taken his fancy. She was quite alone in the world. She had come to America with her brother, a third-rate actor, a hard-working, ambitious fellow, for whom she was to keep house.
“But he died,” she said simply. “So I’m working here.”
She had been pitifully ready to love. She had taken all Lester Tracy’s extravagant speeches in perfect seriousness. She didn’t know how to conceal her sweet delight; and he had been very much touched[Pg 53] by her artless affection. There was no one like little Maisie.
He often took her out to dinner, and to save his life he could see nothing in her to find fault with. She was always gentle, quiet, appealing. What if she was a shop girl? He knew plenty of girls of his own sort who might have learned much from Maisie. She was no gold digger, for she demanded nothing, expected nothing. She was happy if he took her out, but she was quite as happy if he stood in the vestibule of the wretched apartment house where she lived, and talked to her and kissed her.
She cared nothing at all for his money. He had tried to explain that, but no one would believe it.
He couldn’t explain his marriage very well. He had come into the candy shop, one day, on his way home from a wedding breakfast, where he had had a good deal too much to drink. He had leaned across the counter and said to Maisie: